murphaph

The announcement of the babies came well after the 201s, mk3s and mk2's were announced, didn't it? Hattons just threw that page up. PM maybe didn't explicitly inform them of the baby run. Perhaps it's not a huge run and he's confident they will sell out through IRM and Marks? Brexit has surely added an extra headache that PM maybe doesn't need.

I will be in for more IR ones and green and silver ones whenever they do come out. A46 was as far as we know a unique livery, is that still the received wisdom? If so we should obviously not expect that livery to appear again unless it's A46 again.

Great Summary John. Thanks! I have wondered previously what the comparisons are like. It's very interesting that there's no RTR equivalents to MM and IRM despite the high level of interest in the hobby. I suppose the Irish manufacturers have a GB market to tap into too, as many of the MM locos obviously ended up there. Most eBay auctions of MM locos seem to be from GB based sellers anyway. A hypothetical NZ manufacturer would presumably be almost entirely reliant on sales within NZ. 44 operational steam locos is an incredible number. I'm very impressed by that! I wonder was it more difficult to scrap them than it was for Irish owners who could send them to Hammond Lane for easy onward shipments to steel plants in Britain. I wonder did NZ's remoteness depress the scrap value of those locos to a point where it made no sense cutting them up in the first place. It seems that although NZ does have a (fairly unique!) domestic steel industry, it came very late and the furnaces used are not like those in traditional plants that use iron ore mined from the ground. Those canny Kiwis developed a way to make steel from sand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/iron-and-steel

Stephen I'm wondering have you just sent the price of pre-owned A's tumbling or skyrocketing

How popular is the hobby in NZ John? More popular than at home? Hamburg Hbf doesn't look much but it's the busiest station in Germany and second busiest in Europe by passenger numbers. Bit of a dark horse. Most people assume either Cologne or Munich are busier.

I think we are drawing to a close on these thankfully. Time to move on to the next project

I've probably not run my A's long enough to see the failure George. I am interested to hear what it turns out to be though. Hopefully just a dry joint somewhere in the chain. Have you tried a different decoder first? The ESU stay alives are a three wire job I think so in theory the decoder could be gone bad as well. It's not a simple capacitor connected across the potential of the rails AFAIK. There's a bit more too it because big fat capacitors work as stay alives but they also swallow the ack pulses from the motor when programming so they have to be switched out of the circuit then. The three wire ones use some charging and discharging circuitry on the decoder and therefore don't need to be isolated during programming like simple caps do.

Yeah except with the addition of roof grime and soot. Otherwise I think the same.

Bit more weathering before the sealer coat goes on:

Hello and welcome to the forum. Great to have you here

Weathering the resprayed 111s some more. Not quite done but not far off now:

Amazing work and the weathered version is far better looking to me too! It just adds so much realism.

Lovely atmosphere.

Everything has been said that I wanted to say but still felt the need to comment, it's just so good!

Use an enamel wash and you will have hours of working time. You can also just make something similar using oil paints + turps but the drying time will be even longer than with enamels. You can buy ready made enamel washes. Then take off with a cotton bud (after it has dried a bit, maybe an hour or overnight) or those make up sponge things. I think they are for mascara. You can use turps or similar to more aggressively remove (assuming your paintjob is acrylic and not oil or enamel based). Edit: Your models are great but with the stratification you are maybe always going to struggle with washes pooling in those layers where they wouldn't in reality.

Amazingly well done. The backdrop blends in completely seamlessly!

I will take these if still available

First attempt at weathering a steam loco (kindly donated to science by @DJ Dangerous). As this loco never actually existed in Ireland anyway I felt happy enough to just use some random tank engine pics for inspiration, mainly a couple of Southern ones that showed the water splashes after the loco had taken on water recently. Also the ash streaking or whatever it is that streaks down from the funnel was evident. Another loco had streaking from the whistle, presumably limescale deposits? I have no idea really. I am actually pretty satisfied with the result. It will someday be hauling Genesis coaches in sunnier climes

Love that boiler. Brilliant.

Hi Peter, Spray can paint is usually about as thin as it gets. You definitely won't want to thin it any further IMO. I would just spray it out into another container and brush but it might be too thin and run. Test on something else first.

That's true Robert. I am positive that had I stuck with transfers for the large logos, this part of the operation would have highlighted the problem. By spraying the logos it's like the real thing and the dirt can get into all those nooks and crannies.

111s all put back together (bar the wipers which will go on at the very end) and first step in the weathering is a grubby enamel wash. I'll let this dry for a few days and clear coat probably, then maybe do some streaking. I don't think I'll go overboard on these. Mainly frame and roof dirt with a few stone chipped rust spots up front. NIR seemed to keep them a little cleaner than IE did at the time.

Cheers bob but that was a different livery wasn't it?

Hi George. I am assuming you have tried a different decoder to quickly eliminate the one installed? It's the quickest and easiest thing to eliminate but assuming it is the loco wiring then a dry joint on the 21MTC socket might be a likely cause. If it was further away from the decoder I would expect a less all encompassing fault, only at one end (you don't say if it's at both ends), only affecting one led etc. If you are careful you might be able to reflow the solder joints on the MTC connector without disassembling the loco. That's probably what I would do as it's the path of least resistance, pardon the pun. However, it's a bit suss that that the right hand (as seen from the front) white marker light appears not to work at all, so maybe that one deserves special attention should you need to dive deeper into the loco.

I really like that Suburban livery. Looks the business. Does anyone know when it was last applied to any vehicles that made it south of the border?